Pixies and Falling Stars
by AGriffinWriter
Summary: A belated birthday (or Valentine's Day) fic for traveller19. Extra doses of fluffy AU between Drusilla and Loki. I own neither BtVS nor Thor/Avengers, because Joss Whedon has all the fun. Takes place sort-of at the end of Thor (except the Bifrost was not destroyed), but also shortly after the 1998 South America flashback scene in "Fool for Love". Wibbly wobbly timey wimey.


**Pixies and Falling Stars**

By AGriffinWriter

A belated birthday (or Valentine's Day) fic for traveller19. Extra doses of fluffy AU. I own neither BtVS nor Thor/Avengers, because Joss Whedon has all the fun. Takes place sort-of at the end of Thor (except the Bifrost was not destroyed), but also shortly after the 1998 South America flashback scene in "Fool for Love". Wibbly wobbly timey wimey.

* * *

Note: As requested, a brief explanation of BtVS and Thor characters mentioned here.

**BtVS**  
Darla/Grandmummy – vampire who turned Angel.  
Angel/Daddy/Angelus – most notorious vampire in history, tortured Drusilla and killed her family before turning her into a vampire, making her crazy and eternally obsessed with him.  
Drusilla/Dru – hears voices (her "pixies"), typically speaks in riddles, can foretell the future, has a china doll named Miss Edith, very batty in the head, turned Spike.  
Spike/William the Bloody – former poet, drop-dead gorgeous, faithful to Drusilla for a hundred years, falls in love with Buffy Summers (the Slayer), so Dru dumps him and shacks up with a Chaos Demon (all slime and antlers) in South America.  
Buffy/Slayer/sunshine – best female character in all of television history. The chosen one, who alone will stand against the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness (and shag Spike).

**Thor  
**Loki – wears green and needs to wash his hair.  
Heimdall – so blinged out that the sight of his golden magnificence is blinding.  
Thor – red cape and long luscious locks.  
Frigga – do not under any circumstances take the stairs to the left.  
Odin – avoids confrontation by entering a catatonic sleep state.

Well, I think that's all you need to know. Also, in case it's confusing, the POV starts with Drusilla, then swaps to Loki, then back to Dru, then back to Loki.

* * *

****Pixies and Falling Stars****

Drusilla quickly sickens of slime and antlers. The Chaos Demon shows none of the sensitivity that she had found so lovely in her pretty Spike, and when her paramour finally gets his viscous muck on the hem of her favorite dolly's gown, Dru decides enough is enough. She brushes off Miss Edith's dress with her sleeve, gives the demon her most disdainful pout, and floats away without a word.

Only when she finds herself halfway into the deep Brazilian jungle – lost and alone – does Drusilla begin to speak, crooning softly to her doll.

"Never as good as William, was he, Miss Edith?" she frowns, removing a final smear of slime from the china doll's cheek. "And now my poor boy has gone away to the sunshine and will never be mine again. The pixies told me… whispered… and now I shall never see my dark little prince. He has run away to taste the sun… ashes… all ashes…"

The doll's glass eyes do not reply to her, as they so often do, so Drusilla cradles Miss Edith in the crook of her arm and sits down on a boulder, rocking the doll gently. She hums to stave off her loneliness, a feeling she's never truly experienced until now. While human, she had always had the company of her loving family – her sisters and parents – until those fateful days when Angelus had ripped apart her simple world and pulled her mind to pieces until only he remained. He and Grandmummy had been vexed by her, of course, but they tolerated her nonetheless, and she was never alone. And then Spike… dear pretty William… the tearful stranger with his hands full of ripped paper and his head full of beautiful, bleeding poetry. And even when Daddy and his Darla had left, Spike had remained, always there, always faithful to her, tolerant of her moods that shifted with the slightest provocation. Always… until she drove him away with her talk of ashes and the Slayer, punished him by seeking her pleasures elsewhere. And now she is alone…

Suddenly, the sky lights up with a brilliant streak, not quite like a passing comet, nor like lightning… a riveting star falling to earth from the heavens, tinged with a green-gold light. Drusilla clutches her doll to her chest and watches the blazing beam much like a child might observe a butterfly, one hand extending as if to catch the object of attention and enclose it in her palm. The falling star plummets to the ground a short distance away, and Drusilla springs to her feet and dances through the jungle in pursuit. Something about it sings to her, like her pixies, a kind of magic and delightful wickedness.

She hurries between the trees to the crash site, a deep furrow in the rich dark earth, lined by tiny fires. Lifting the hem of her skirt so it doesn't drag in the mud, she tiptoes close to the brightest source of the light. The air is soaked with magic, more flickers of green and gold. Reaching the center where the land bevels inward, she leans forward, peering over the edge to see a hunched figure crawling out from the hole in the earth. It appears to be a young man in leather armor, his skin a rich navy blue that ripples slightly, as though semitransparent silver runes are embossed in his flesh. The flickers of colored light emanate from him, coiling sporadically around his arms and fingers. As he scrambles up onto the embankment, the blue tone gradually recedes from his skin to reveal an ashen, sweating face framed by shoulder-length ebony hair.

Drusilla tilts her head, still silently observing this stranger, her head full of whispering fairies. _A prince… a magic prince… far older than Daddy and Grandmummy… and yet younger… a young god… fallen from grace and glory_. _Cast out of heaven for his fighting and meddling._

"Where did you come from, little dark prince?" she whispers, and the young man whips around with a gasp of shock, still half-kneeling in the dirt.

"I… what… what happened?" he demands, frantic hands scrambling, pushing himself to his feet. "What is this place? Speak, mortal!"

Drusilla giggles. "Not a mortal, silly star. Should know better."

"Where am I?! Midgard, I know, but where?!"

She considers him for a few moments, perplexed by his anger and panic.

"My William didn't tell his princess where we went. Not California… far from the Slayer and her nasty sunshine, but not so far that she didn't float all 'round my pretty Spike. And all my pixies laughed."

"What nonsense do you speak?" splutters the man.

"Not nonsense," Drusilla regards him with a pout. "The pixies talk about you, too, little star. Glowing with pretty green power. Giddy magic for mischief. That's what you are." She steps slowly around the perimeter of the upturned earth, circling until she's standing close to him. "Mischief. And magic."

* * *

Stunned by the information she's somehow been able to scry about him – though none of it proves helpful to his present circumstances – Loki gazes behind the pale woman to the thick jungle surrounding the site of his fall. This is nothing like his other experience of Midgardian terrain, the vast desert, everything open and exposed to the sun. Here, in the dead of night, entombed by trees and swamp and muggy air, he feels like his very skin is being suffocated.

"How did I come to be here?" Loki mutters to the strange, ghost-like woman with the doll in her hands. She has the form of the Midgardians, and yet seems different, full of a coldness he does not understand.

"You fell from the sky, pretty star," she replies, smiling with great glee. "I wished not to be alone, and you appeared." She closes her eyes and gives a shiver of delight. "Naughty pixies, keeping secrets, not telling me to expect company. Tea-time shall be late, for I haven't set out the saucers and biscuits."

Confused by her babbling, Loki looks at his own hands, flexing and clenching them in turn, trying to summon… _anything_. After a few moments of frustration, he sits down in a huff, his strength tapped merely from the effort of attempting to call upon his usually effortless stores of magic.

"Something is wrong with the star. Not shiny now…"

"Do not call me 'star', Midgardian! I am Loki of… of Asgard… no," he stutters, lifting his fingers to his brow and cradling his head as he continues muttering dejectedly. "Of Jotunheim. Laufreyson. Yet I called Odin Allfather my liege lord all my life, king and father. And Thor Odinson my brother. And now they have cast me out and robbed me of my strength and magic."

"Loki," she giggles, petting the hair upon her doll's head. "Loki the dark prince, the Trickster, with his pretty green cape and golden mail."

"This is not a moment I take lightly, earthling!" the Asgardian snarls, furious at the depletion of his stores of mischief. He wipes the sweat from his brow, then tugs the collar of his tunic, trying to bring relief to his overheated neck. "What are you? Not human, yet you stand and speak as one of them. What realm do you hail from?"

The strange woman smiles. "Not a person anymore. Would you like to see, pretty Loki?"

Perplexed, Loki gives a non-committal nod. At first, he believes she is merely furrowing her forehead in an expression of anger, the area between her brows becoming unusually wrinkled, almost as though her bone structure has altered. She blinks, and the eyes that had been a pleasant blue a moment previously are now a radiant and feral yellow. Her mouth widens in a grin, showing razor-sharp fangs lining her rosy lips.

The woman is a demon.

Then, for the first time in his many years, Loki Odinson turns on his heel and flees in terror. Shaking and panting, he runs as swiftly as his legs can carry him, but the ethereal, tittering woman keeps pace with him, her face still a horrific mask. Whatever kind of creature she is, her speed matches his, ruling out any chance of escape. So he attempts the only path left open to him.

"Heimdall!" he shouts, turning his face skyward, still dashing through the dark jungle. "Heimdall, hear me! Open the Bifrost! Save me!"

He stumbles over a tree root and curses in the Asgardian tongue, scrambling to his feet with all haste.

"Naughty, naughty!" chides the demonic woman. "Come back, pretty star!"

"Heimdall!" he continues yelling and racing through the jungle. "Hear me! I repent! I should never have turned against the Allfather and against Asgard! For the sake of all Valhalla, Heimdall, deliver me! I repent for my attack on Jotunheim! I swear never to cause grief to the Nine Realms for all my remaining days! I shall feed the poor of Midgard a-a-and bring joy and puppies to all children! Only bring me home! Heimdall!"

Shoving his way between vines and into an open clearing, Loki hurries to the center, where all the stars and suns of the heavenly realms are visible, and there… from deep in space… comes the welcoming spiral of home…

* * *

"Caught you!"

Reaching her prey at last, Drusilla throws herself on him with a tinkling laugh, locking her arms around the young god's waist.

"What a merry chase, my lamb! I was beginning to think you'd leave me all alone."

"Release me!" Loki flounders, trying to push free even as he feels the pull of the Bifrost. Drusilla senses it too, and she lifts her eyes to the sky, her vampire visage withdrawing from her face, revealing the countenance of a seemingly harmless girl again.

"I see it," she whispers breathily, in awe of what she is witnessing. "A rainbow bridge, come to snatch you up and bear you away…"

A moment later they're caught together in the swirling wind and lifted into the air. Drusilla gasps and giggles, clingingly tightly to the leather lapels of Loki's outer armor, the familiar texture comforting to her. The journey seems to take a great deal of time, and yet only a moment, and she finds herself on a golden platform of intricate interlocking rings, surrounded by a great dome of similar construction. The spinning golden mechanism slowly winds down, and Drusilla releases Loki, her eyes widening as she takes in the sight of Asgard, the stunning buildings reflecting the sparkle of a million stars.

"Such a pretty sky kingdom, little prince," she coos to Loki, who has stepped as far away from her as the enclosing golden dome allows. "Have you brought me to Heaven? Daddy and Grandmummy always said I was much too wicked, that the pixies would pinch and snatch and pull me down to Hell."

Loki glances hopelessly to a tall warrior whose golden armor conceals nearly all his features, just a pair of riveting gold eyes in a dark face. His stoic expression bears just the slightest trace of amusement.

"I didn't mean to bring her along," Loki admits awkwardly. "Did you… did you receive my message? I swear never to misbehave again if only Odin will restore–"

"I have conveyed your words to the Allfather, who has permitted your return," says the gold knight. "The royal family approaches now."

Loki hurries to the rainbow bridge, and Drusilla follows in time to see three figures converge on the green-clad Trickster, two men and a woman, whose faces are rapt with joy. She hangs back, cringing slightly in the company of all these extraordinary beings.

* * *

"Loki! We thought you dead!" exclaims the thunder god, barreling toward his brother and engulfing him in a bone-crushing hug. "I cannot put in words my joy at finding you safe and whole, brother!"

Loki stares in shock from Thor to Odin, then glances back into the Bifrost's protective sphere to spot Heimdall – whose lips are pursed together to prevent outright grinning. "You mean… I was _not_ exiled? That you had not struck me powerless?"

"No, no, dear Loki!" Frigga exclaims, also embracing her surrogate son. "You alone depleted your strength by your actions here. The loss is only temporary, surely. We thought you lost to the void, yet somehow you were instead transported to Midgard."

"Little dark prince became a shooting star."

The mumble comes from beside them, and the Asgardian royal family turns to see a waif-like woman in a white gown, with long raven tresses and a china doll tucked into her arm like a child she is rocking to sleep.

"Who is your friend, brother?" asks Thor, smiling at their visitor.

"Stand back!" Loki exclaims as Frigga takes a step toward the girl. "She is not as she seems, not Midgardian. Some vile monster dwells within. I have seen it. Reveal yourself, creature!"

"Loki," the queen says, a slight scold in her tone. "She must have a name. Who are you, my dear?" she asks, turning to their guest. "Don't be afraid."

The young woman's blue eyes regard them warily. "I am Daddy's masterpiece, and William's princess, and the Slayer's books say I am Drusilla. But the pixies took my name away with my soul, and buried it in a pretty grave beside my sisters. And now... now I walk among gods, even though my Angel said I was too wicked."

"Drusilla? Very pretty," smiles Frigga. "What do you mean, an angel told you that you were wicked?"

Drusilla shakes her head. "My Angelus."

"I have heard of this Demon with the Angel's Face, and of his kind," declares Thor. "The Midgardians call them Vampyre, who feed on the blood of humans and possess strength and abilities that some say rival even the dwellers of Asgard. She must also be one of them."

"Yes, yes!" Loki insists. "I saw it! With dreaded fangs that struck fear into my inmost being! She must not be allowed to remain here. We must be rid of her, return her to Midgard!"

"Oh, Loki!" chides Frigga, her soft motherly eyes turning to the distressed vampire. "Don't say such things. Look at the poor dear."

"But, Mother," Loki's voice drops to a hissing whisper, "She is _mad_."

Drusilla giggles, her enhanced hearing enabling her to catch his words.

"Mad as a will o' the wisp, I am. April fools and March hares. Nowhere to go since my William ran away with the sunshine. No one but Miss Edith left with me."

Eyes turning to her doll, she rocks it again, humming a melancholy ditty. All the faces of the royal family seem to soften, watching the girl who for the moment looks so innocent and peaceful.

"If she speaks truly, Mother, perhaps we should keep her here among us," suggests Thor, drawing Frigga aside for a moment, leaving Loki alone with Drusilla while the Allfather returns to the citadel. "Consider this. I know not if the strength of the Vampyre are as great as the rumors say, but I venture the people of Asgard are better girded to take charge of her than the humans are."

Frigga smiles at her golden-haired son, sensing he has not voiced his true motivation for keeping Drusilla among them.

"And… perhaps you think her a fitting companion for your brother?" she wastes no time in asking. "A taste of his own mischief, perhaps?"

Thor's cheeks flush, his rationale uncovered, and behind them, Drusilla wafts closer to the trickster prince.

"Your Mummy likes me," she titters. "Are you really forbidden from your tricks and charms, little prince? Miss Edith longs to see the fireworks."

"I… b-but I…" Loki stutters, still baffled by the unbelievable flurry of events which have transpired over such a brief period of time. Not only has he been welcomed back to Asgard – his family accepting him with open arms, despite his outburst and the revelation of his true Jotun heritage _and_ his attack on those he most loved – but he has acquired a bizarre other-worldly creature, who despite her raving words, is quite beautiful at the moment, with the demon concealed. But his thoughts and response are hurled form his mind as his brother shouts, braying right beside his ear.

"Prepare a feast! Have the choicest oxen blood brought out! We must welcome the guest of Asgard with all the ceremony which befits a princess! To the castle!"

Chuckling at Thor's extreme enthusiasm, Loki offers his arm to Drusilla, and her fingers wind securely around the crook of his elbow. Then, escorted by the god, she glides down the rainbow bridge to the city in the sky.

_The End_.

_I intentionally left it open-ended. I figured they would either fall in love or go together to the madhouse! :)_


End file.
